Kutap – Armenian national trout dish is something amazing! Recipes of stuffed fish are found in many national cuisines, but the combination of fish with raisins and ginger is probably the only one of its kind. Garnish is not needed for this fish – it is already inside her, where rice absorbed all the juices along with the flavor of ginger.
A festive table in Armenia is rarely without a ceremonial fish dish (from whitefish, sturgeon or trout). Lake Sevan is famous for its delicious trout, here it is called ishkhan.
The recipe is quite old. For many centuries, this dish has been prepared in Armenia. Trout was gutted through the gill slit spoon (the abdomen was not cut). In this dish, you can use in the filling is still greens and walnuts.
Ingredients:
- trout carcass weighing about 1 kg;
- 1 cup of boiled rice;
- 50 g of butter;
- 0,5 glasses of raisins;
- 1 teaspoon of ginger;
- ground crackers;
- salt pepper.
How to cook kutap
Clear the trout and gut it very carefully: the abdomen is not cut, but the insides are removed through the hole that remains after the removal of the gills. Pay special attention, so that bile does not spread – this will give the fish bitterness. Clean the trout from the inside with a tablespoon so that no blood remains on the spinal part. Rinse thoroughly with fish.
Boil the rice. Ginger clean, grate on a large grater. Raisins soaked in boiling water for a few minutes, thrown back on a sieve, dried. For mincemeat mix rice, butter, raisins, ginger. Salt and pepper.
Fill the abdomen of the fish with this mass.
Trout pepper, salt and sprinkle with lemon juice.
Lubricate the baking sheet with butter, sprinkle it with ground breadcrumbs and lay out the stuffed trout.
Bake in preheated oven. The oven should be heated to a temperature of 170 degrees. Bake until ready for 40 – 50 minutes.